District 5 Diary

Rob Anderson's commentary on San Francisco politics from District 5

Monday, December 07, 2009

How the anti-car jihad hurts the city #1

So Tom Radulovich doesn't like the proposal for a major retail project on a blighted section of Market Street because the plan includes a 201-space underground parking garage. What a surprise! Radulovich prefers the blighted status quo rather than allow parking for death monsters, aka automobiles:

Retailers and investors have insisted it's a no-go...unless the plan's underground parking provision is given the go-ahead. Opposition to that is certain. One of the people at the meeting, Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, has expressed opposition to additional parking in San Francisco. One of Livable City's goals is "a reduction in our dependence on the automobile."

Radulovich is a BART director, but he's really just another San Francisco anti-car advocate, which is evident when you look at his website. This is the progressive plan for the city: make it as difficult and expensive as possible to drive here---for residents and tourists, even though tourism is our most important industry. The Bicycle Plan is of course the key to this plan, since it will go a long way toward creating gridlock on city streets.

I notice that Radulovich lists "Transit Villages in the 21st Century," by Michael Bernick and Robert Cervero, on his site's bibliography. But Bernick himself is alarmed by how his transit corridors idea is being misunderstood and misapplied to the streets and neighborhoods of San Francisco, as he told us years ago in an op-ed in the Chronicle.